ustxtxb_obs_2005_01_07_50_00033-00000_000.pdf

www.koop.org –oh we’re out there Coming to BookPeople in 2005 \\N-III i \\\\ I It\\ I. January 19 Robert Huffaker When the News Went Live January 30 Alton Brown limiust Here for More Food February 5 Corey Mitchell Murdered Innocents “\\\\ COREY M ITCH I:11 February 10 Lisa Fittipaldi A Brush with Darkness Capital Consequences Families Tell Their Stories -RActiFT 1,ING February 11 Rachel King Capital Consequences February 22 Mark Obmascik The Big Year I O tLL LLL OBt4ASCIK A TA. of Mon. Nature, end Fowl Obsession Book People A Community Bound By Books. Bookstore Giftshop Coffeehouse 9 am 11 pm everyday 603 N. Lamar 472-5050 shop online at: www.bookpeople.com Bank’s financing. The Bank’s comparative advantage in the business of funding big-ticket loans is its competitive edge on corruption. No other institution is better placed to get AES, Suez, Exxon, or Shell a sweetheart deal with a Third World government that has just borrowed a lot of cash. Strict anticorruption safeguards that would open up infrastructural negotiations would eliminate the attractiveness of World Bank loans for the big borrowers, and that is the real preoccupation of Mallaby and his informants. As it stands, middle-income countriesIndia, China, and Brazilcontract loans from the Bank at market rates. The interest payments on these loans fund the staff’s salaries and subsidize the loans for poor countries that justify the Bank’s existenceits alleged poverty fighting. But strengthening safeguards would reduce the Bank’s appeal for these countries and the other middle-income borrowers who can also buy credit in commercial markets. They might just do that and leave the Bank out, cutting off the cash inflows. Such an eventuality would reduce the World Bank to the deteriorated status of the decrepit U.N., which no one pays any attention to any more because it has no money. And this is the real concern of the World Bank staff. It is the reason they dislike Wolfensohn so much. In his naivete, he has potentially opened up the Bank to self-destruction. If the Bank cannot operate in the corrupt, back-scratching way that it always has, then major multinational corporations like AES and big-borrowing governments like China may go elsewhere to do business. And that would kick off a rapid decline at the World Bank. So, pardon me, both the book and the Bank are about fighting poverty in the end. But not in Africa, Asia, or Latin America. Right here at home in Washington, D.C. and its more affluent suburbs: Spring Valley, Potomac, Great Falls. I’m lovin’ it. Gabriela Bocagrande reports on multilateral malfeasance for the Observer. 1/7/05 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 33